White Americans’ enthusiasm for liberty and “humanity and tenderness” was mostly reserved for people who shared their skin color. They had no plans to abolish slavery. That left them vulnerable to the British, who’d promised freedom for slaves who fought for the crown. Washington, who owned several hundred people himself, recognized the power of the pledge—not only in the reality it promised but also in what it signified to the rest of the world. A weapon he needed to ward off criticism arrived just in time, in 1776, right after he had been appointed commander in chief. That was when Phillis
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